Using the Final Cut Pro Compressor Tool vs the Compressor Program

The Compressor Program is an integral part of Final Cut Pro
because it is directly related to the final output of the video project.
How you compress and encode the project will ultimately decide how
people view it in terms of quality. Compressing and encoding programs
are now a standard part of editing software but it was not always like
that. It's only within the last seven years that the ability to encode
video files was given to the masses. Now in that recent time we've
become familiar with the Compressor Tool and the Compressor Program. So
what's the difference? Well, it's tied into the development of encoders.

Pre 2003

Before 2003, everything that was considered digital video was
originally recorded onto tape. These tapes had to be manually captured
to the computer in order to be digitized. You would connect the tape
player to the computer with a firewire. The editing program would have
the ability to capture the video when being played back and this was how
it was done and still is for some projects.

When the editing process was complete the project would then be
exported to the tape. The computer would play the sequence back to the
camcorder via the firewire and the camcorder would record it onto tape.
Then in 2003 the compressor tool was available in Final Cut Version 4.
Users now had the ability to encode their files into quicktime movies
that could be played over the web as well as the ability to convert
their work in MPEG 2 files, which allowed them to make DVDs out of their
video. Before that you needed to pay someone who had the equipment a
lot of money to encode your video.

The Compressor Program

As new versions of Final Cut were released, newer versions of
Compressor were released along side it. It was always a stand alone
program but as it became more advanced with the ability to convert video
into more than quicktimes and MPEG files it started being referred to
as the Compressor Program as opposed to the Compressor Tool when it was
first released.

What's the Difference?

The early versions of the Compressor were called the Compressor Tool
while the later versions are the Compressor Program. It's really just a
marketing term. When it was able to handle just the basic functions of
encoding and was considered new technology for editing programs it was a
tool. As it became more advanced and became part of the post production
process that we couldn't live without it was upgraded to the status of
program.